A room of one's own: new creative writing residency

Designed to help a writer finish a book or make progess on a new one, the School of Humanities writer-in-residence award offers four weeks of private office space in the Arts 1/Humanities building in Symonds Street on City Campus, as well as a stipend of $3000.

A total of 18 writers applied for the inaugural residency and the first winner is Sonya Wilson, whose first novel Spark Hunter was written during the MCW 2017 year.

An epic adventure-fantasy story of survival in Fiordland, Spark Hunter was published by Cuba Press and in 2022, won the NZSA Best First Book Award at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. It has also been optioned for a film.

Wilson is now now working on a sequel and is delighted to be offered this opportunity.

“I’m absolutely over the moon to be awarded this residency. It is always such a struggle to find the time and the space to write, so to be given a whole month to write full-time is just the greatest gift and will be a game-changer for my new book.”

She says she found the university environment incredibly stimulating during her MCW year and is really looking forward to being back on campus and part of that creative, academic environment again.

“A huge thanks to the School of Humanities and the Creative Writing Fund for this amazing opportunity.”
 

And because the entries for the residency were of such a high standard, the School of Humanities has created another award, The Writers’ Room, where five writers get a week each in another office within Arts 1 and a stipend of $500 each.

The successful writers are: Rosetta Allan, Tsitsi Mapepa, Celia Pain, Josie Shapiro and Tracey Sharp.

Director of the MCW programme, Associate Professor Paula Morris, is extremely pleased the University is providing this support, funded from the Master of Creative Writing Alum Fund and established a few years ago to help MCW writers promote their books and develop their careers.

“It’s very important to us to continue supporting MCW writers after the course ends, through professional development, masterclasses and now this new residency. I hope we are able to offer even more writing residencies for our alums next year.”

The first residency will take place from mid-October this year, with the Writers’ Room occupancies taking place at the same time.